Right now anyone can cast spells all the same even if they are a brand new character. My suggestion is since MAGIC will end up being difficult to acquire but also powerful, it should have skill tiers based on the "school"

Anyone can cast a weak heal, fire spell, buff etc. A specialized mage uses a little less stamina plus has extra power or duration

Three tiers in each school, so no mage can every be "best" in everything but they might be a "genralist" (first tiers of all schools) or specialize in one or two or three.

SHADOW SCHOLAR: Damage over time (DoT) plus re-animate undead (who attack anything that has a shadow mist spell on it or is aggroed to their master)

WATER SCHOLAR: transfer spells: HP from own HP to a friend, HP from foe, stamina versions, and health-to-stamina "recharges" (you go low on health to gain stamina, mixed with green life/druid mage heals, can be powerful but not so offensive). A walking battery pack for the team or the solo mage. low levels is 1:1 ratio but higher levels give much better ratios.

Again ANYONE can cast the base spells but it is both weak + expensive, and adding school tiers reduces the cost/recharge time and increases the power/duration to make them more usable.

Players will have to experiment with the style that suits them, no one can excell at everything in MagicI am not into PvP but it might mean a lot more strategy because not everyone has the same "builds" and you won;t know what an opponent is capable of.

Spell Researcher makes the spell scrolls for all schools, each school has three weaker TIER 1 spells, two midrange TIER 2 spells, and a single powerful Tier 3 spell

** NOTE: by "tier 3" I mean for the crafting requirement, you need advanced spell researcher to make the scroll but anyone can cast it. Lower levels not as well as upper levels.

Last edited by Brash on Tue Jan 21, 2014 8:30 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Locking out a certain advancement due to having specced into another goes a little again what I intending for the default advancement system. With that said, this behavior could be easily modded in, or I may change my mind depending on how well (or not) the current implementation goes.

I do think I may take some of these suggestions to heart in how I structure the spell casting system going forward. I love the concept of each 'school' embodying a certain types of spells. I also really like the idea of spell being usable, but weak and expensive without having purchased the necessary advancement tiers. I will definitely be implementing something similar to this and expanding it to encompass melee and ranged combat as well.

Actually I didn't intend to suggest locking out one path due to pursuing another, I think I just meant "you can't spend points in everything -- or maybe you CAN but it would be really really hard to find enough XP points after a point. So choose wisely."

So from a practical standpoint, players would likely chose to specialize in a couple. But they also could spread out and go for "generalist" and put a point into everything -- they would just struggle finding XP points to extend each tier. Nothing prevents you from fighting with swords -and- fire spells. Or mixing up "shadow" and "life" magics with a little archery and carpentry.

But even with no points at all spent in a school, you can still use the spells. They are just expensive and weak compared to someone who put tier points into it. in comparison, Crafting is actually more "exclusive" since you cannot even use a workbench without purchasing that skill tree. Magic is more egalitarian .... anyone can be a bad mage if they want.